Thursday, November 28, 2013

French Foreign Legion and Insurgents

All,

Happy Thanksgiving! And, just to prove I'm still alive and being productive, here's a post. I bought some tan felt the other day and have been working on making it into a desert mat. Here are some pics:

And this is when I realize how terrible the photos are... This is in my garage, and it's dark outside, so it's getting washed out by the flash. It's orangey-tan felt, which I spray-painted khaki. I think it has a nice mottled look to it, though you certainly can't tell from the photos. The little dots are green bushes I glued in place.

A little closer, still very washed out. I put the bushes in place with white glue, plus doing it while the spray paint was still nice and sticky. I've heard of using a glue gun, but I'm not smart enough for that... So, if you see my with this mat on the tabletop, fighting it out sans bushes, you'll know what happened.

Another shot. I tried using different camera settings, but nothing worked out. The mat is quite a bit darker than you see here. Why did I do a desert mat? Well, for starters, to give these guys something to fight over.

Here is my small force of French Foreign Legion, in desert camo. This was my first go at desert basing, and I'm very happy with it. I painted the guys up, then glued them to the bases, put down a layer of sand, painted it a sand color, then gave the guys and the bases a wash. Lastly, I white-glued some bushes on, then gave them a matt spray. For what it's worth, the bases match the desert matt I made really well.

The whole force is six rifle units (can be teams or whole squads, depending on what rules I want to use), a weapons element, and three leaders.

Here's a sample of two rifle bases, and two leaders.

Closeup of a rifle base. I like their tiny little FAMAS rifles. There are also some SAWs mixed in on other bases (looks like our M-249, but I'm not sure if that's accurate, don't really know what the French use as a SAW).

A shot of the Weapons element. These are almost entirely borrowed from the British Heavy Weapons pack, so I won't even pretend they are accurate, but they work for me. Left to right is a SAM, an MG, and an ATGM.

The reverse. This little force will go well with the three Panhards I already have painted up. Now, for their opponents.

The full insurgent force. Both forces are made up entirely from Minifigs 10mm (they call them 12mm), with these coming from the "Arab Insurgents" range. I also have Modern Brit, Modern Isreali, and Mountain Insurgent forces I need to get based up.

In any case, the whole force consists of 8 rifle elements and four leaders. I also have two Toyota pick-up trucks ("Technicals"), one with a 106mm recoiless rifle and one with a 12.7mm Dshk HMG, to go with this force.

Closeup of a couple rifle elements.

Closeup of a couple leaders. Again, very happy with the basing.

Alright, so that's what I've been working on since finishing my French Indochina forces. I had a great Thanksgiving and am off from work tomorrow, so I'm looking at putting the paintbrush/basing materials down and getting into some games this weekend. I know it's very ambitious, but I plan on playing three games this weekend. Here's what I plan to do:

1. Play another fight from my 82nd Airborne "All Americans" campaign, possibly ending the campaign in Sicily for them. The platoon will be coming out of its blocking positions into Marsala to replace a battalion coming out of the line for some rest after some very heavy street-fighting. The platoon will be charged with pushing further into the city.

2. A modern Special Operations element conducting a raid against modern Regulars to capture a high-ranking officer.

3. An attack by the FFL to break up a meeting between two rival clans looking to patch relations up enough to team up against their shared European adversary.

So, to make this fun, you can vote on which fight you'd like me to carry out first. Keep in mind that not many folks read my posts (also, it's getting late on Thanksgiving night, and the first fight is happening tomorrow morning, so not much time left), so one vote may very well carry the day!